World renowned Pianist Sheng Yuan is China’s leading Bach interpreter

This Sunday, The Bookworm and Time Out Magazineare teaming up to host internationally renowned pianist Sheng Yuan, who played the country’s first Bach Cycle and is known as “China’s premier Bach interpreter”, as a part of this month’s Sunday Salons, an interactive lecture series that takes you “behind the music” of China.

Once a month, this lecture series hosts incredibly talented Classical musicians to come to The Bookworm and play extracts from their music in an intimate setting, followed by an opportunity to discuss their inspirations behind the music together with their audience.

“This is a unique opportunity to listen to the great musicians from China and ask them questions directly about their incredible talents.” – Nancy Pellegrini, Time Out BJ & SH’s Classical & Performance Editor

I try my best not to miss these Sunday Salons as each of the featured musicians that are invited to be featured by Time Out Beijing are the same ones who pack out full performance theatres for thousands of RMB per seat.

Sheng Yuan is no exception. A world renowned pianist, he will be discussing his own recordings alongside music critic Sam Su and promoter Zhang Kexin.

“Sheng Yuan, who was born to a family of musicians in Beijing, changed China’s piano pedagogy forever by introducing a requirement for Bach as a professor at Central Conservatory. This Sunday, he will speak about Bach’s influence on other composers, using examples from his own recordings.” - Time Out Beijing

This Sunday Salon will be the last one of the season and will resume again in September 2012.

*Don’t forget to bring in this month’s copy of Time Out Beijing and entrance ticket is reduced to only RMB 20 (which also includes a free drink courtesy of The Bookworm)!

Event Details:

Date: Sunday, June 17, 2012

Time: 7:30PM

Location: The Bookworm

Address: Sanlitun Nanjie, 三里屯南街4号楼

Tickets: 30RMB; 20RMB (if you bring in this month’s copy of Time Out Beijing)

About Sheng Yuan:

International Piano Magazine considers Yuan Sheng “China’s premier Bach interpreter”, the New York Times describes his Bach playing as “a model of clarity, balance and proportion”.

Yuan Sheng studied in his native country in Bejing, and through a scholarship entered Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Solomon Mikowsky and later with Bach specialist Rosalyn Tureck. His interpretation of Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations is genuinely personal, but never artificial or self conscious. He doesn’t use the piano as a “pianistic” instrument (though his technical command is all the more impressive), but simply as a means to express the message of this music, a human message of beauty, joy and sorrow.